TWiki Interviewed by Robert Scoble

TWiki got interviewed by well known blogger Robert Scoble: "How Work is Changing with the Open Source Wiki Pioneers: TWiki."

TWiki®
is a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki,
enterprise collaboration platform, and web application platform. It is a
Structured Wiki, typically
used to run a project development space, a document management system, a
knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet, extranet or the
Internet. Users without programming skills can create web applications.
Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins.
TWiki fosters information flow within an organization, lets distributed
teams work together seamlessly and productively, and eliminates the
one-webmaster syndrome of outdated intranet content.
TWiki has been downloaded over 700,000 times and is used daily by millions
of people in over 100 countries. Some larger deployments have over one
million pages and over 10,000 users. TWiki is developed by an active opensource
community on twiki.org.
More details.

What does it look like?

TWiki looks and feels like a normal Intranet or Internet web site.
However it also has a Edit link at the bottom of every topic
(web page); everybody can change a topic or add content by just
using a browser.

TWiki is hosted and developed here at the TWiki.org web site.
You can surf and add/change content to get an idea of how TWiki works.
Start surfing at the
WebHome topic, or learn
about the platform in the
Welcome Guest.

Who is using TWiki?

TWiki is installed on many web sites, mainly behind corporate
firewalls. Many major companies use TWiki because it is very user
friendly compared to some well established commercial groupware
systems like Lotus Notes. Read some
TWikiSuccessStories
to get an idea of how companies such as Motorola
(story) or SAP
(story)
use the TWiki platform.

Read also the testimonials
to see what other people say about the platform.
TWikiInstallations
has a small list of TWiki installations and clones. (Note: In case
you installed TWiki on your server, please add it to the
TWikiInstallation
directory.)

How is TWiki being deployed?

A wiki is a Enterprise 2.0
platform to create share and remix content. TWiki as a structured wiki
goes a step further; it enables users to automate their workflow by
creating custom tailored wiki applications.

Companies are deploying TWiki in different ways, and TWiki is
quite flexible to adapt to different needs. Here is a non- comprehensive
list of how TWiki is being used:

To replace a static intranet. Content is maintained by the
employees, thus eliminating the "one webmaster syndrome" of
outdated and insufficient intranet content.

Application Wiki: Contributors use the TWiki platform to create web
applications. The TWiki Variables, Plugins and sample applications offer
a rich environment where domain-specific applications can be built
efficiently by contributors with moderate skill sets. Developers can create
new Plugins to enhance the functionality of TWiki even further.
Some example applications:

Statistics:
Create Statistics
of TWiki webs. Find out most popular pages and top
contributors.

Preferences: Four levels of preferences:
TWikiPreferences
for site-level;
WebPreferences
for each web; user level preferences; and page level preferences.

Conflict resolution: Content is merged automatically if more than
one user is edit a page at the same time. In rare cases where a
conflict cannot be resolved automatically, users are warned and
guided to resolve the conflict manually.

Referred-By: Find out back-links to a page.

... plus many more features not listed here.

How does it work?

TWiki is a cgi-bin script written in Perl. It reads a text file,
hyperlinks it and converts it to HTML on the fly.

Can I get the source code of TWiki for my own web site?

TWiki is GPLed software.
The Perl CGI source code, templates and documentation are available for free.

If inclined, hire a
consultant
to get you up to speed, maintain or customize your TWiki installation.

Can I contribute as a developer?

TWiki is open source collaboration software, contributions are very much
appreciated. TWiki is further developed here at TWiki.org, and guess what, the
Codev web serves as the
platform for collaborating on that.